Daily Archives: March 3, 2018

While Four Chambers has always been a labor of love, 2017 has been truly exceptional. We launched our catalog by publishing four full-length books and a chapbook in the space of six months. We helped Cardboard House Press present the Uruguayan author Roberto Echavarren. We helped organize and promote Writers Resist. We presented spontaneous poetry at Independent Bookstore Day and Pie Social. We tabled at the Tucson Festival of Books, the Vegas Valley Book Festival and more. We teamed up with Scottsdale Public Art to present 8 local authors at Canal Convergence. We worked with our partners Cherie Buck-Hutchison and Ashley Czakowski to execute a second iteration of In Sight, a six month project matching 18 authors to 18 artists to produce collaborative work. 12 installments of our monthly literary salon GET LIT. 12 installments of our monthly Writing Group. 500 submissions for our first full-length manuscript call. Our fifth issue. All of thispumped by the blood of our hard-working volunteers.

Looking back on all of this feels incredible. Even when we were in the thick of it, feeling stressed out or overwhelmed, we never lost sight of what we were doing (and more importantly, who we were doing it for). But experience is one thing; reflection, another. And while every year has been bigger, better, more successful–2017 our most enterprising yet–it has also presented exceptional challenges. Not only in terms of our personal and professional lives (the details of which we’ll respectfully spare), but the organization itself.

And so, after giving this extremely careful consideration and thought, we have decided that, beginning this summer, May 2018, Four Chambers Press will be entering an indefinite hiatus as we stabilize operations, transition leadership, and work to create a more sustainable organization. While current titles will stay in print and special projects and collections will be considered on a case-by-case basis, regular publishing will be suspended. However, monthly programs like GET LIT and the Writing Group will continue uninterrupted.

While we’re unsure what the future of Four Chambers looks like, serving you these past five years has been—definitively, without a doubt—the greatest privilege, honor, and joy of our lives. We love you. We look forward to seeing what the next stage of Four Chambers looks like. We’ll see everybody around soon.